Creating Multimodal Texts in the L2 Writing Classroom

This chapter examines an ESL writing class at a U.S. university that employed a re-mediation assignment to complement and facilitate the understanding of rhetoric. A re-mediation assignment asks students to transform text-based material into a multimodal form by combining linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, and spatial modalities. Students are to make use of the affordances and audiences of the new form without losing the core components of the original text. Findings suggest that students demonstrated motivation and engagement with the assignment and writing process, in part, because they were allowed to infuse other abilities (drawing, computer programming, video editing, and storytelling), languages, and cultures into their projects. As multimodal and multimedia digital literacies continue to evolve, digitally mediated projects such as re-mediation are necessary to prepare students to be competent writers in a digitally mediated society.

Visual and Media Literacy Put Into Practice

In this chapter, the author explores the concept and teaching potential of visual and media literacy and discusses the creation of digital visual narratives as a means to develop critical media literacy. Based on an example from her university class, the author argues that a hands-on approach of creating digital visual reader-responses to literary texts is a highly beneficial tool to not only develop but also experience visual and media literacy. In the process of creating digital visual narrations using the Web 2.0 application Pixton, students additionally reflect the representation of the protagonists' ethnic and cultural identity within the text and in their surrounding environment, thus fostering intercultural awareness.. This creative reader-response approach allows combining literary literacy with the development of visual and media literacy in digital learning settings.

Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a School Reading

This chapter aims to develop a new analysis formula and a new language of literary school education/teaching literature, especially the language of reading engagement functionalized in terms of emotional, social, and cultural needs that literature is capable of satisfying. This applies also to young readers. The starting point is the specificity of emotional and sensory reception of literary narration (e.g. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by R. Dahl) in which vivid, multisensory mental imagery absorbs/engages many readers (also on the principle of intersubjective cooperation). Discussion in this chapter is based on three issues: transactional theory of reading response (with aesthetic and efferent reading); individual, personal, and private interpretations; and analysis of types of affect in reception. It also proposes a description of the process of pupils' cognitive activities, recognize mental images, understanding metaphors, and express emotions.

Creating Multimodal Texts for Language Learning Purposes

The idea of creating short educational video clips oriented on the language, culture, or communication is well grounded in language learning pedagogy. They support comprehension and language skills of the students, intercultural competence, and digital skill. They change repetitive tasks such as rehearsal or rote learning into attractive and motivating activities well embedded in situated learning procedures making learning more personal. The study aims at analysis of the content of over 280 video clips made by pre-service language teachers between 2008-2014. The clips are intended for a variety of educational purposes (e.g., introducing new language, illustrating usage, enhancing practice, documenting performance, and assessment). Students used subtitles, intertitles, and narrative revoicing a story. They produced various genres. The results show that student teachers are able to produce multimodal texts to enhance various stages of learning and teaching processes (presentation, practice, and assessment) while developing six out of eight lifelong learning competences.

The Applicability of Picturebooks to Teach English as a Foreign Language

Interactive shared picturebook reading with learners of different ages and levels has proven to be a prominent practice in all languages. The overall aim of the chapter is to explore the applicability of shared picturebook reading to teach English as a foreign language. Due to the affordances of the multimodality of picturebooks to develop language and content knowledge, this critical investigation seeks to integrate shared picturebook reading as a mode of instruction into the young learners' academic curriculum to promote oral language abilities and conceptual knowledge. In order to provide practical advice for educators of young learners, the chapter describes ways that picturebooks boost vocabulary, language learning, and conceptual knowledge in English L2. The chapter develops criteria to select picturebooks for subject-area instruction, paying attention to the picture-word dynamics.

Postmodern Literacy

In this chapter, the author reflects on the importance of today's literality in terms of multimodal reading and literary competence. This competence should include a multidimensional ability and contribute significantly to enrich life. An adequate multimodality is also presented as a co-constructive creation of meanings, so that didactic preconditions for the reception of mulitmodal texts are irreplaceable. As an example of dealing with multimodal texts in the classroom, conceptual foundations of postmodern texts are presented, which also include hypertextual and intertextual reading as part of a new learning experience. This is why practical suggestions and didactic aspects of literary communication are illustrated as a prerequisite for a successful classroom conversation, which should enable the reader to become an intellectual accomplice of the author.

Enhancing Classroom Authenticity, Motivation, and Learner Autonomy Through Multimodal EFL Projects

In German secondary education, the use of authentic literature or film in language teaching is mostly reserved to advanced classrooms, as it focuses primarily on analysis and writing, which rules out using these materials for lower-level learners. However, theories in motivation and learner autonomy suggest that a process-oriented approach involving authentic materials, real-world media, meaningful activities, and self-directed learning, as in multimodal project work, is more suitable for teenagers than traditional coursebook work. Classroom implementation might overcome certain obstacles by careful planning and communication but also points towards changes in the curriculum and in teacher education. This chapter therefore suggests introducing multimodal, (semi-)autonomous project work—illustrated by examples from teaching practice—to raise motivation, foster engagement with language, and develop real-world competences in the learners; however, more in-depth research is needed to establish effects on the learners.

Intercultural Awareness in Teaching English for Early Childhood

This chapter explores the use of film as a good tool to increase intercultural awareness, reflecting on the relevance of recent research developments in this area for current approaches to foreign language pedagogy. English teachers have got several issues to deal with. Two of them have been chosen to be studied. The first one is regarding the raising of intercultural awareness in teaching English to very young learners. A second matter that has been examined is the one related to the use of film as an effective way to enhance intercultural awareness to come to the final thought that a film-based methodology is not only valid in terms of intercultural awareness but also to introduce new contents and concepts to have a valuable effect in motivation and teaching improvement, including the language syllabus, teaching materials, language assessment, and teacher education.

Video-Literature Teaching in the EFL/ESL Classroom

This chapter reports on work carried out to develop an inclusive multimodal framework for the implementation of literary works with film adaptations as part of a video/literature workshop designed for one of the Master's courses aimed at the training of EFL/ESL secondary teachers in the Complutense University in Madrid (Spain). This multimodal framework was motivated primarily by the fact that literature has recently become an essential part of the curriculum in Bilingual Secondary Schools in Madrid. The reality that the use of film adaptations of literary texts facilitates the implementation of literature in the EFL/ESL classroom was also a key factor. The lines following not only describe the framework developed, but also provide one example of implementation of the model for the teaching of Geoffrey Chaucer's “The Wife of Bath,” without any doubt one of the hardest texts to tackle in the EFL/ESL classroom out of the literary works recommended for the bilingual official curriculum in the Spanish Community of Madrid.

Learning English in a Multidisciplinary Context

John Adams is a biographical miniseries produced and broadcasted by the American satellite network HBO, which ran between March 16 and April 27, 2008. It illustrates the life of the United States' second president, John Adams, from 1770 to his death in 1826. Some of the key scenes deal with the Tea Party of Boston, the process of independence and the signing of the Declaration. This series is a major example of how to use a media source to get the student involved in the lesson while acquiring skills and knowledge belonging to different areas. The development of the American Revolution (for history and geography), the ideals of Liberalism (for philosophy), and the early pamphlets and the Declaration of Independence itself (for literature) are some examples of how the student can get acquainted with a multidisciplinary learning process. The experience has shown how this miniseries helps the student to learn English while watching it (with or without subtitles, regarding the subject's skills), and through several workshops afterwards.